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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8168676" data-attributes="member: 82106">I consider 'traditional'/'old school' play as being almost entirely dominated by 'the long shadow of E. Gary Gygax.' Although I would not characterize a lot of it as 'how D&D was played in 1973' perhaps, it all very clearly descends from that period and the way people are thinking about things, the terms they use, and what they consider to be the nature and standard processes of an RPG are entirely reflective of that. Again and again we hear statements and analysis that amount to "an RPG (or roleplay) can only be a GM describing scenes to players which (s)he has authored and to which their sole response is limited to those available in-character'. The goal ALWAYS encompasses some flavor of "adjudicate and present situations such that they never deviate from some (how determined?) measure of 'things which could happen without respect to PCs'."I don't really have good terminology for a lot of these 'Gygaxian assumptions' as you put it, or the process attached to them, because I feel that the analysis served up with them is really pretty weak. The process, as presented by its practitioners, simply doesn't seem to 'hold water' to me. I can use their words sometimes, but I think the connotations they are attempting to convey don't apply at all to the way I think about it.As you suggest, I don't think any of this is intended. I think the whole structure came about without any real analysis. It was simply a result of tinkering with different possibilities, welding various pieces from different aspects of wargaming together with 'free play', and something popped out the other side. Later some people went back and started to really think seriously about 'what and why' but as a hobby activity there isn't a lot of reason for most people to do that, they play games, they don't usually design them or feel a need to come up with much terminology or theory. OTOH, if you are deeply invested in your practice, you may feel that the analysis has a negative caste to it, when it doesn't really. I mean, I don't care that a Dungeon Crawl or Sandbox has no character of plausibility or logic to it at all. Its a game!</blockquote>

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